Lin says "Woah, I actually leveled from all of that! Did you?"

"Nope, but that's because I leveled not too long ago. It is a nice big chunk of experience though. I am beat, I think I am going to just lay here for a bit."

Almort says "If you will excuse me. I need to go report to the council right away."

When I don't respond, Almort leaves and he is almost running when he does. Lin comes over and sits on my arm with her back leaning against my neck. Zachariah oversees taking care of the few wounded and getting the weapons put away.

"Hey, Lin, did you see what happened to the demon?"

Lin says "I think he got away, didn't you see?

"No, I was busy keeping the spell from going out of control."

Lin says "Remind me later and I will teach you how to properly build a new spell."

"Hey, give me a break, I was in a rush."

Lin says "That's no excuse. Some of the mistakes you made were fundamental ones."

"If you are going to be teaching me, then are you going to wear the teacher outfit?"

Lin says "If I do, will you pay attention?"

"Oh, I will pay attention. Just probably not to what you are teaching me."

Lin says "Then no, I won't wear it. Maybe if you learn properly, I will wear it after."

"Deal!"

Zachariah says "Ahem. Would you like to move downstairs where you can be more comfortable?"

"Honestly, right now I don't even have the mana to assume human form."

Lin says "I am not leaving him."

Zachariah says "Ah, alright. Then can I get you anything? Maybe have some food sent up?"

"Oh, yes please."

Zachariah says "Alright. It will take a bit, so please be patient."

"We are not going anywhere. Oh, did you see what happened to the demon?"

Zachariah says "It flew away to the west with a few hundred Shrikes."

"That's too bad. If I wasn't so exhausted I would chase it down and finish the job. At least the demon was spotted, that should prove they aren't extinct."

Zachariah says "That's true. I just hope it doesn't come back with another swarm of Shrikes."

"It would probably take it quite a while to gather another swarm."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Zachariah nods and then heads down into the building to arrange some food. He probably has other things he needs to take care of to deal with the aftermath. I close my eyes and meditate while keeping my senses active, this would be a bad time to get attacked.

I'm not worried about Zachariah or his people, but others in the city are a different story. After seeing what I am capable of there are probably some in the city who want me gone. After all, people with power tend to hate anything that they can't control.

Hopefully, the council will prove me wrong, but I'm not going to count on it. Besides, I'm sure that there are other people besides the council who could cause us problems. Although, they probably aren't ready to deal with me yet, they may not have heard about me yet.

After today they will, everyone in the city probably will, I doubt the council will keep things quiet. Even if they wanted to, today's events were too big to hide for long. Especially since there were a bunch of witnesses here on the roof, I doubt they will keep quiet.

It won't take much for rumors to start and once they do there will be no stopping them. At that point it might be better to tell the truth than let the rumors go wild. Then again, that is the council's problem more than it is mine, so I won't worry too much.

By the time food arrives I have recovered a decent amount of my mana. Enough that I could shapeshift, but I don't for the time being so I can eat a lot. Luckily, Zachariah seems to have given the proper orders, they bring me a small mountain of food.

It ends up being a good thing that they did, I eat almost all of it before I feel full. When I am done eating, I feel much better, but now I want to go to sleep. The food was great and the best part is there was no poison, which I was a little worried about.

I don't think Zachariah would try to kill me, but I am fairly sure there are spies in his organization. This deal we came up with earlier is going to make a lot of money for his group. That is why he won't want me dead, but his competitors probably would.

Although, the chances that they have found out about the deal already are fairly low. I am probably just being paranoid, for all I know our entire time here could be peaceful. That would be nice, but I just can't make myself believe it will happen.

Zachariah says "Was the food satisfactory?"

"Yes, very. Thank you."

Zachariah says "No. Thank you for protecting my building. Thanks to the two of you we only had injuries, no casualties. I doubt anyone else in the city was that lucky."

Lin says "You're welcome."

Zachariah says "Should I arrange anything else for you?"

"No. It's been a busy day. I think we will return to our hotel for now. We can meet again tomorrow."

Zachariah says "Alright."

With that I shapeshift, then Lin and I head downstairs and walk back to our hotel. There are people on the street, but a lot less than there were previously. There are Shrike bodies that still haven't been cleaned up yet, but not too many. Luckily, while our hotel did suffer some damage, our suite wasn't damaged.

Lin says "We aren't going straight to sleep, are we?"

"No, I was fairly tired after eating, but the walk back here helped."

Lin says "Good. Come sit down. Now, the most important part of a spell's structure is the framework."

Lin proceeds to give me a very thorough lesson on how spells are built. Then we go through what I did for the wind blade tornado and she shows me what I did wrong. After that, she makes me start from scratch and design the spell properly.

*DING*

Congratulations! You have created a new spell! Wind Blade Storm!

Wind Blade Storm

Level: 1

MP Cost: 5,000

Damage: Int x 5 Duration: 1 Min

Area of Effect: 50 foot circumference

"My system seems to agree with you. It just registered this as a new spell that I created. It normally doesn't do that when I am just casting things normally."

Lin says "See, I told you the structure matters. When you just throw a spell together on the spot it costs you way more mana to cast it. That's fine for small spells, but big ones like this need to be made properly."

"Fine, you are right. From now on, if I need a big spell, I will create it properly. Which reminds me, I want your help with something else."